The Food Explorer

by Daniel Stone

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  Wilson, Stephen. Feuding, Conflict, and Banditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

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  NOTES

  Historical nonfiction is the work of hard facts, even if one must admit that some facts are harder than others. Long-ago events that I’ve recounted rely on the written recollections of those who took part in them, almost all of whom, in this story, have died. In the case of a conflict, I chose the account written closest to the time the event occurred. I made logical assumptions about people and places only when independent sources corroborated a particular claim. Anything within quotes I took from an interview or historical document.

  The black-and-white images in this book were almost all acquired from the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden in Coral Gables, Florida. The watercolor paintings are courtesy of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Pomological Watercolor Collection, Rare and Special Collections, National Agricultural Library in Beltsville, Maryland. The image of the Yokohama Nursery Company botanical catalogue was granted by the Arnold Arboretum Horticultural Library of Harvard University.

  CHAPT
ER ONE: Chance Encounters

  “I had been accustomed”: Fairchild, David. The World Was My Garden. TS, Family Life, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Unpublished draft.

  ailing in his stomach: Fairchild, David, Elizabeth Kay, and Alfred Kay. The World Was My Garden: Travels of a Plant Explorer. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1938, p. 47.

  who refused to cable money: Pocket notebook, winter 1894. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Coral Gables, FL.

  as he was at ballroom dancing: David Fairchild to Marian Bell, 1904. Family Collection, Baddeck, Nova Scotia.

  “There I was, with an adventure”: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, p. 47.

  Corsicans could be wary of outsiders: Wilson, Stephen. Feuding, Conflict, and Banditry in Nineteenth-Century Corsica. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

  “a bandit of a fellow”: Pocket notebook, winter 1894. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Coral Gables, FL.

  folded like an accordion: Photograph notes, date unknown. Photo file. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Coral Gables, FL.

  “On an errand that was not likely”: Fairchild, David. “Our Plant Immigrants.” National Geographic, April 1906.

  “Americano!”: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, p. 49.

  cuttings could later be grown: Pocket notebook, winter 1894. Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden. Coral Gables, FL.

  Only the southern states could farm: Dunning, Nelson A. The Farmers’ Alliance History and Agricultural Digest. Washington, D.C.: Alliance Pub., 1891, p. 454.

  “The fare of the Puritan farmers”: Poore, Benjamin Perley. “Agriculture of Massachusetts.” Lecture, Essex Agricultural Society, October 1, 1856.

  “Porridge for breakfast; bread, cheese, and beer”: Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture. Fourth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture. Boston: William White, 1857.

  Slaves tended to get leftovers: Hedbor, Lars D. H. “Feeding the Slaves.” Journal of the American Revolution, July 19, 2013. https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/07/feeding-the-slaves/.

  “Woody tissue” was harder: Letheby, Henry. “On Food.” Journal of the Society of Arts, Vol. 16, 1868, pp. 651–57.

  The nineteenth century’s avant-garde: Prinz, Jesse J. Beyond Human Nature: How Culture and Experience Shape the Human Mind. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012.

  “excess in the quantity and variety”: Francatelli, Charles Elmé. The Modern Cook. London: W. Clowes and Sons, 1846, p. viii.

  wasn’t properly “brought up”: Napheys, George H. The Physical Life of Woman: Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother. London: C. Miller, 1893, p. 174.

  “Eat only the proper amount”: Rorer, S. T. Good Cooking. Philadelphia: Curtis Publishing Company, 1898, pp. 145–60.

  Some blamed it on eating hot foods: Ross, Alice. 1993. “Health and Diet in 19th-Century America: A Food Historian’s Point of View.” Historical Archaeology 27 (2). Society for Historical Archaeology: 42–56.

  The implied warning: Herschell, George. Indigestion: The Diagnosis and Treatment of the Functional Derangements of the Stomach, with an Appendix on the Preparation of Food by Cooking with Especial Reference to Its Use in the Treatment of Affections of the Stomach. Chicago: W. T. Keener, 1905.

  cooking eels with a little parsley: An American Lady. The American Home Cook Book: With Several Hundred Excellent Recipes: Selected and Tried with Great Care, and with a View to Be Used by Those Who Regard Economy, and Containing Important Information on the Arrangement and Well Ordering of the Kitchen: The Whole Based on Many Years of Experience. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1854.

  terrapin turtles boiled with salt: Haber, Barbara. From Hardtack to Home Fries: An Uncommon History of American Cooks and Meals. New York: Free Press, 2002.

  The foot of a calf: Chadwick, J. Home Cookery: A Collection of Tried Receipts, Both Foreign and Domestic. Boston: Crosby, Nicholas, and Company, 1853.

  more than half were farmers: National Bureau of Economic Research. Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States After 1800: Studies in Income and Wealth No. 30. By Dorothy S. Brady. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, Dist. by Columbia University Press, 1966.

  comfort food: Romm, Cari. “Why Comfort Food Comforts.” The Atlantic, April 3, 2015.

  just over five feet: “Charlotte Pearl (Halsted) Fairchild.” Kansas State University. Accessed May 1, 2015. https://krex.k-state.edu/dspace/handle/2097/21953.

  She had been the first: Fairchild, David. “A Genetic Portrait Chart.” Journal of Heredity 12, no. 5 (1921): 213–19.

  “Spread with a nice sauce”: Godey’s Lady’s Book, 1850. Philadelphia: Louis A. Godey, 1850.

  clumping together oats: Gitlin, Marty, and Topher Ellis. The Great American Cereal Book: How Breakfast Got Its Crunch. New York: Abrams, 2012.

  “butterine”: Snodgrass, Katharine. Margarine as a Butter Substitute. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Food Research Institute, 1930.

  the crowd’s Victorian sensibilities: Koeppel, Dan. Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. New York: Hudson Street Press, 2007. pp. 51–52.

  Nine million people: National Bureau of Economic Research. Output, Employment, and Productivity in the United States After 1800: Studies in Income and Wealth No. 30. By Dorothy S. Brady. New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, Dist. by Columbia University Press, 1966.

  a slender blue-eyed boy: Fairchild, David. “A Genetic Portrait Chart.” The Journal of Heredity 12, no. 5 (1921): 213–19.

  He wandered through the neighbors’ rows: Epstein, Beryl Williams, and Sam Epstein. Plant Explorer, David Fairchild. New York: J. Messner, 1961, p. 41.

  “When Wallace came he stayed at our house”: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, p. 14.

  thus solidifying his perch: “Natural Selection: Charles Darwin & Alfred Russel Wallace.” University of California Museum of Paleontology. Accessed April 19, 2015. http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/history_14.

  Wallace told Fairchild that: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, p. 14.

  “When the formative years of one’s life”: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, p. 6.

  Any Kansas boy could find: Nelson; Ida, Hial, Elmer, Arthur, and Walter. “Sketches of Our Home Life.” 1897. TS, Amherst College.

  How could you inoculate: Epstein, Beryl Williams, and Sam Epstein. Plant Explorer, David Fairchild. New York: J. Messner, 1961, p. 24.

  coincidentally named Isaac Newton: Rasmussen, Wayne D. 1990. “The People’s Department: Myth or Reality?” Agricultural History 64 (2). Agricultural History Society: 291–99.

  peach yellows that made fruit ripen: Galloway, B. Memorandum (on the History of the Department of Agriculture). 1914. TS, USDA Collection, National Agricultural Library.

  to rival Gustave Eiffel’s: Larson, Erik. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. New York: Crown, 2003.

  “knowledge people can use!”: Letter from Beverly Galloway to David Fairchild, 1893.

  If he timed it right: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, p. 29.

  seven-thousand-ton ocean liner: Detroit Publishing Co., Publisher, photograph by Johnston, John S. “SS Fulda.” 1882. Image retrieved from the Library of Congress.

  The man was tall and handsome: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, pp. 30–31.

  the number changed each time: Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. Adventures in a Green World: The Story of David Fairchild and Barbour Lathrop. Coconut Grove, FL: Field Research Projects, 1973.

  “why don’t you collect plant specimens”: “Hunting for New Crops.” The Inter Ocean (Chicago, Illinois), September 4, 1906.

  Fairchild saw him one more time: Fairchild, David. The World Was My Garden. TS, Family Life, Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, unpublished draft.

  mountain tribespeople
in northern Morocco: Fairchild. The World Was My Garden, p. 32.

  drawn to the dramatics and prestige: Douglas, Marjory Stoneman. Adventures in a Green World: The Story of David Fairchild and Barbour Lathrop. Coconut Grove, FL: Field Research Projects, 1973.

  CHAPTER TWO: One Thousand Dollars

  A hundred million years after that: Raven, Peter. President Emeritus of Missouri Botanical Library. Interview by author. December 16, 2016.

  Nine thousand years passed: Tatum, Charles M., ed. Encyclopedia of Latino Culture: From Calaveras to Quinceañeras. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2014, p. 473.

  “wheat, corn, rice, barley, sorghum, and soy”: Gollner, Adam. The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce, and Obsession. New York: Scribner, 2008, p. 22.

  the last ice age, eighteen thousand years ago: De Blij, H. J. “The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300–1850 by Brian Fagan” [Review]. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 92, no. 2 (2002): 377–79.

  the process of domestication: Diamond, Jared. “Evolution, Consequences and Future of Plant and Animal Domestication.” Nature 418, no. 6898 (2002): 700–07.

  Domestication let people: Raven, Peter. President Emeritus of Missouri Botanical Library. Interview by author. December 16, 2016.

  The earliest North Americans: Diamond, Jared. “Evolution, Consequences and Future of Plant and Animal Domestication.” Nature 418, no. 6898 (2002): 700–07.

  Mexico and South America: Raven, Peter. President Emeritus of Missouri Botanical Library. Interview by author. December 16, 2016.

  early civilizations in Asia and Africa: Akhunov, Eduard. “Crop Origins for National Geographic Magazine.” Interview by author. September 22, 2014.

  Edible plants tend to reproduce sexually: “How Do Plants Reproduce Sexually?” Biosciences for Farming in Africa. Accessed March 16, 2016.

  produce plants vegetatively: Bradford, Kent. “Plant Reproduction.” Interview by author. April 3, 2016.

  the first roots of agriculture: “The Development of Agriculture.” Genographic Project, National Geographic. Accessed May 21, 2015.